all passengers and other citizens of the United States, furnished with passports or necessary protections. You will use the strictest vigilance, that the intentions of Government, in this respect, be followed by all persons under your command, and if any of them have failed in the due execution thereof, you will do justice to the demand which will be addressed to you, as soon as you shall have ascertained their validity. The Minister of Marine and the Colonies, E. BRUIX. A correct copy-The Minister of Exterior Relations. LIBERTY. No. 337. [TRANSLATION.] EQUALITY. The Minister of Foreign Relations of the French Republic to Mr. Skipwith, Consul General of the United States.-Paris, 3d Fructidor, 6th year of the French Republic, (August 20, 1798.) I send you, sir, copies of two letters written by the Minister of Marine to all the principal officers, civil and military, of the ports of the Republic. Their contents will prove to you the attention of the Government to remedy the abuses committed against its intentions. With respect to the persons detained in the civil prisons of Orleans, because they are not possessed of papers to prove that they are not English, and who claim to be Americans, be pleased to call upon the Minister of General Police, to whose functions belong all the measures of safety. The Minister of Marine informs me, that he has transmitted their petition to him, and I am going to write to him myself, in order to request him to admit your declaration in their favor, in the absence of other proofs. Receive, sir, the assurance of my consideration. CH. MAU. TALLEYRAND. No. 338. Mr. Skipwith, Consul General of the United States, near the French Republic, to Mr. Pickering. Secretary of State of the U. S.-Paris, August 22, 1798. SIR: With a copy of a letter I have just received from the Minister of Foreign Affairs, I have the honor, under cover hereof, to transmit to you copies of two letters, which have been officially communicated to me, from the Minister of Marine, to all principal, civil and military officers, at the different ports of this Republic, concerning the safety and protection of American citizens in general, and those seamen in particular, who were detained, or are in confinement, at those ports. Agreeably to the intimations contained in the minister's letter to me, I have this day made application to the Minister of Police in favor of the American seamen, who, by means of one of the public authorities at L'Orient, had been arrested as Englishmen, and are at present confined at Orleans as prisoners of war. In a few days, I expect to obtain their liberation, and shall procure their passages home. of I have likewise the pleasure of forwarding to you an official copy an arrete of the Directory for raising the embargo, imposed by Government on all vessels belonging to the United States, in the ports of this Republic. I deem it my duty to observe, that, from informal communications, which I have recently and repeatedly had with some of the best informed individuals of the Government on the subject of American vessels and property, now under trial before the different tribunals of this Republic, I have derived such information of the present disposition and intentions of the Directory, as to be satisfied myself, that they will ere long endeavor to provoke in the Legislature a revision of their maritime laws, and that such a system will be organized as will secure the most important rights of neutrality upon the seas: this pleasing event is generally expected, and will, I am persuaded, arrive before this can reach you. Though many of the late arrets of the directory have certainly encouraged the tribunals in the most pernicious applications of existing laws in regard to neutral property captured and brought in for adjudication, yet it may not be unimportant to remark to you, sir, that the Directory, however well disposed, cannot change the conduct of the tribunals in regard to American and other neutral vessels now before them, without legislative interference; and that, owing to particular circumstances, it appears evidently, that some time is necessary for them to prepare and dispose that body to alter some laws and make others, which shall cause the tribunals and privateers to respect neutrals in general, and the flag of the United States in particular: but from the present manifest dispositions and endeavors of the Directory to produce that end, I am happy to add, that the tribunal of cassation, before whom appeals have been made on most of the American property condemned in France, appear disposed to procrastinate pronouncing upon them until the sentiment of the Legislature shall be declared upon the laws which are operating against their No. 339. No. 22.-Mr. Skipwith, Consul General of the United States, to the Secretary of State of the U. S. dated Paris, 23d January, 1799. SIR: As every circumstance expressive of the present disposition or intentions of this Government towards neutral nations in general, and the United States in particular, must at the present juncture, prove acceptable to our Government to know, I hasten to transmit you a copy of the message lately addressed to the Council of Five Hundred, by the Directory, concerning the actual system of privateering; the object of that message is first to place in the hands of Government the immediate control of all prize business, instead of the commercial and civil tribunals, and, from the evident necessity of repressing the violence and rapacity of French privateers, I have reason now to think that the system suggested by the Directory will be soon approved by the Legislature; and that, in consequence, the rights and property of neutral nations will be considerably more respected than they have hitherto been. In hope, as I am also, of this change proposed by Government of the mode and principles of judging prizes, proving favorable to some, if not all the American vessels lately captured and now under trial, I deem it expedient to follow where I am charged with the defence of such vessels, and to recommend to all others charged with the same, the system of procrastination. I deem it not uninteresting also to enclose to you, under cover hereof, an exact translation of a letter lately provoked by me from the Minister of Foreign Relations to the Minister of Justice, in consequence of some representations which I had just before made of the absurd and iniquitous application of the laws and arretes concerning the rôle d'e. quipage, which shamefully continue to be practised by many of the Tribunals. I beg to observe that the copy of the letter above alluded to was privately procured and furnished me by Mr. Victor Dupont, formerly French Consul at Charleston, and whose aid and zeal in rendering my countrymen service, I cannot too much commend. At this gentleman's request, I likewise transmit to you an example of a letter lately published and written by him to the commissary of the directory near the tribunal of cassation on the subject above mentioned. I enclose to you at the same time a copy of a declaration made by three American seamen before the American Consular agent at Ostend, concerning the loss of the ship Polly, Captain Stewart, and her cargo, near that port and on their passage from New York to Hambro; and at foot you have the names of American vessels which have been captured by French privateers and brought into ports since my last respects. Respectfully, I have the honor to be, sir, Your most humble servant, Brig Tryal, of Philadelphia, Capt. Talbot; brought into Bordeaux. Ship Pigou, of Philadelphia, Capt. Green; L'Orient. Patapsco, Capt. Hill; Dieppe. The American, of New York, Capt. Burger; Dieppe. The Amsterdam, Capt. Adam Scott; Cherbourg. The Ami and Susan, of Charleston, Capt. Pickett; Cherbourg. Brig Adventure, of Philadelphia, Capt. Brioren; · Brest. Ship Statira, of Norfolk, Capt. Seaward; L'Orient. Brig Maria, of Norfolk, Capt. Jeffery; Roscoff. No. 340. Mr. Pickering, Secretary of State of the United States, to Mr. Skipwith, Consul General of the United States, at Paris, dated PHILADELPHIA, June 10th, 1799. [EXTRACT.] "You speak very justly of the violence and rapacity of French privateers," and of the iniquitous application of the laws and arretes, which shamefully continue to be practised by many of the tribunals:" you would have spoken still more justly had you called the laws and and arretes themselves iniquitous. These are the sources, the shameful sources of the violence and rapacity of the French privateers,” and of the iniquitous" decisions of their tribunals. And it is not because the Directory wish to stop those fountains of iniquity, that in their message to the Council of Five Hundred, (which you have enclosed) they propose that judgment in the last resort should belong to themselves. In their message, they describe the injury which arises to France by its system of privateering; and hence, not from any regard to justice, and the rights of neutral nations, they intimate their wishes that power might be vested in the Directory, to relax the execution of their iniquitous laws and arretés, when political motives may indicate such relaxation. In other words, that they may plunder or forbear to plunder, a neutral nation, as they shall think terror or soothing may best promote their views. Other motives may easily be imagined of the wish of the Directory to get into their own hands the ultimate decision of prize causes. The letter of the Minister of Foreign Relations, (of which you sent me a translation) to the Minister of Justice, relative to the rôle d'equipage, is valuable for its confession that our treaty with France did not require it. Mr. Dupont's letter to the Directorial Commis sary, with the tribunal of cassation, truly states, that it was a document unknown in the United States, when the decree of the 2d March, 1797, declared that every American vessel destitute of it, should be good prize. I trust we shall not know it hereafter, but as a monument of French rapacity and injustice. and that ultimately we shall not consent that France shall arbitrarily prescribe what documents our vessels shall be furnished with to identify their character, and the property of their cargoes. If justice ever again revisits her tribunals, such proofs of property as our own laws, and principles of right universally admitted, shall prescribe, will be admitted to establish the claims of our captured vessels. Mr. Dupont, in his letter before mentioned, has made some very just reflections but if he desires the least credit for any efforts he may make, to obtain right and justice for the citizens of the United States, let him retract his insult on their Government, and let him no more say that it is "influence par les conseils, les intrigues, et la conduite astucieuse de l'angleterre." He has been too long a resident in the United States, and is too well acquainted with the character and principles of its Government. and the men who administer it, to believe that such an "influence" exists, or has ever existed. In addressing that sentiment to the Directory's Commissary, he has made a sacrifice to their power, and that and similar sacrifices may be necessary to secure or to promote his interest with that Power; but being capable of making them, he can look, whatever in other respects may be his disposition, for no regard on this side of the Atlantic. We are not inclined to receive a benefit at the expense of truth and honor." No. 341. [TRANSLATION.] No. 22.-The Minister of Foreign Relations of the French Republic, to the Minister of Justice. PARIS, the 22d Frimaire, 7th year, (13th December, 1799.) DEAR COLLEAGUE: The Consul General of the United States has transmitted me a copy of the letter he addressed to you the 4th instant, relative to the American vessel the Polly, taken and brought into Bordeaux. by the privateer The Bonaparte. He has at the same time informed me of your wishing to know my opinion on the matter therein treated. The question, my dear colleague, is this, whether the rôle d'equipage of an American ship in order to be valid must be conformable to the maritime regulations of the Republic, or to the treaty of commerce, concluded in 1778, between France and the United States? In my mind, dear colleague, the conformity of the rôle d' equipage to the regulations must be alone sufficient. To support the contrary |